Word Furrows From Emma
roughshod
odyssey
smarmy
rivulet
superconductivity
retch
pubescent

I don’t know why I signed up for a sales course in spring. This could have waited til summer, when afternoons in the office become unbearable. First of all, there’s the carpet in this place. Once green, now brown, and of the same pattern that my mom had in the living room back in the 80’s, except for the places where the former owners retched. Some afternoons I stare at those spots and I could swear there’s a pattern—they’re not just random upchuckings as everyone assumes—the guy who ran this place before Lisa disappeared for crying out loud—I think the stains form some kind of hieroglyphic message, but I just can’t make it out.

Why can’t Lisa replace the carpet? And what’s with her smarmy mannerisms? Everyone notices it, but no one ever says a thing. “Ta ta!” she squeaks when she heads out for one of her three-hour lunches with one of the sales reps; then, knowing no one but me can see, she flips the back of her skirt such that I get a one second view of her Maidenform uni-suit, the kind of slip/bra/girdle number that smoothes every wrinkle, flattens every doughy surface. Why does she think I need to see that? What does it get her? I have never understood why semi-attractive women seem to thrive on running roughshod over us nice guys. Yes, us nice guys! She could flip her skirt for Rod and we’d hear about it all afternoon. Boner this, humpty dumpty that, Rod thrives on that stuff. It’s so adolescent! No, pre-pubescent! No, adolescent!

But don’t get me started talking about Rod, and heaven help me if I continue thinking about the wretched décor at this place. I really should stop staring so much at the carpet, trying to find meaning in it. It’s just another sick and abscessed facet of this whole enterprise called SuperConduct. The only thing I like about this place is the back door. Walk out there, and a small rivulet runs through the property, down from the railroad tracks, trickling past the building, and carried off to the canal. I sit out there, smoke, and watch the water at least ten times a day.

SuperConduct was the brainchild of Lisa and her erstwhile husband, Ernie. They had triplets on their very first try, and life, overnight, went from figuring out where to score the nightly joint to how to afford Pampers. Ernie was actually stealing them out of the back of Fred Meyer’s, I later learned. He had a connection from high school who would hook him up with Pampers—as long as he supplied the soft porn tapes of Lisa masturbating, which he made every so often with his camcorder. Anyhow, when Lisa figured out Ernie’s scam, she also figured out that the triplets – all boys – would likely follow in his footsteps, and that’s when she broke down and had what she likes to call her “Epiphany” – SuperConduct.

The sign outside says it all. “SuperConduct – Manners School for a New Millenium”. It’s part of a big fat backlash that just won’t seem to quit. This backlash is so old it’s hard to even remember what it’s a reaction to. But a little random guessing will pay off. Kids doing drugs, kids not giving a damn about anything, kids having a choice about their own sexuality, you name it; it all has to stop, and the way to stop it is by getting kids to behave.

What makes SuperConduct it an epiphany is how convenient it is. You drop off your kids on Saturday morning—wild, unruly, sometimes stoned—and pick them up Sunday night – tame, docile, scared straight.

The End